We found heaven, and it was empty.

Nearly three decades ago, work had begun on a machine that could punch a hole through the fabric of reality. A hole straight through to another reality and beyond.

The idea was that, with the right circumstances, we could find a universe with limitless energy. This would make up for the unimaginable amounts of power that the machine took up, and the irreparable damage it would likely do to Earth and the surrounding solar system. But if we found a universe at the very beginning of it’s creation, we’d have unfathomable amounts of raw undefined energy that’d last for a couple billion years. And at the same time, scientists would be able to study universes that followed entirely different laws of physics from our own.

A few years before I was born, this was accomplished. With this limitless energy expanding technology beyond anything possible before it and solving most of the world’s problems… War and struggle had been at an all time low.

Until a group of religious extremists tried to use the machine, to prove the existence of god.

This started a war, one of the largest uproars in history. Nearly every single religion turned on this small group of 30 people, protected by the United States government.

Some were scared that their god would be proven false, and some thought it wrong to try and prove their god real rather than simply having faith.

But in the end, there was no war. World leaders would not attack the U.S., which supplied their power. And the countries who did were often far too small to do any major damage.

The machine was set to search for a universe with the coordinates of various holy numbers from the christian bible. For weeks it searched, finding nothing. Different combinations inputted every time a search failed.

Until a little over four months ago, January 19th, 2234.

We found heaven. There was nothing else it could be. It was a reality of endless sky. Nothing but clouds and blue as far as the eye could see. As far any creature, machine, or natural entity, could go. The air was breathable, fresh and sweet even. And the light was dim, but not too dark to see.

And it was entirely empty. The only thing of note were red lakes.

Every cloud had them, and they were incredibly fresh. They were still rippling, upon entering the universe. Some, in fact, hadn’t even fallen to the ground yet. The first three in even claimed they looked humanoid for a second.

The damage to our world upon opening a portal is irreparable and devastating. But we now know the damage to the other world is a thousand times worse.